WHILE most families are currently focused on the festive season, garden designers across the globe are looking further ahead to spring as the closing date for entries to the Malvern Spring Festival looms.

And visitors to the show next May are in for a treat as the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has introduced a new garden category called Spa Gardens, where budding non-professional designers can showcase their creative flair.

Entrants are tasked with producing a garden for a small space inspired by Malvern in its Victorian heyday as a fashionable health resort when visitors flocked to try the Malvern water cure and take in the fresh clean air from various spots on the hills.

The aim is to produce a contemporary garden re-interpreting the Victorian pleasure and healthy living garden experience.

Spa Garden designers are encouraged to revisit the amazing and innovative things Victorians enjoyed in their design. Although, designers must consider much more than a trip into Victoriana.

Organisers have already received more than 20 entries for this category from international designers and there may be more to come as the closing date is Friday January 6 2017. There are a total of seven spaces for gardens in the Spa section and the international applicants are each competing for one place, while home-bred garden creators are vying for the other six places.

The entries will be judged the day before the show opens on Thursday May 11 next year, and the winner will have a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase their talents at the Moscow Flower Show as part of a newly introduced exchange programme.

Jane Furze, head of RHS Malvern Spring Festival, said: “We are so excited to be launching the Spa Gardens category and cannot wait to see the creativity from new designers blossom at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017.

“It’s a real privilege to be working with the Moscow Flower Show to offer an exchange programme that is unlike anything we’ve ever done before.

“The Spa Gardens category will be a spectacular showcase of our new vision for RHS Malvern Spring Festival and is a wonderful development for our festival, which is going from strength to strength.

“RHS Malvern Spring Festival has always been an event to give opportunity to those looking to get into the gardening world and the Spa Gardens category is the ideal forum for new talent to flourish.

“We are really looking forward to seeing this year’s entries and look forward to welcoming a new collection of designers to next year’s event.”

The Moscow Flower Show exchange programme will see one designer, with grant aid, invited to build a sponsored garden at the top horticultural event in Russia at the event at the end of June.

While the exchange programme will invite one Russian designer to build a garden at RHS Malvern Spring Festival.

Offering a unique platform for emerging talent, the Spa Gardens category will bring to life the new vision for RHS Malvern Spring Festival. The festival’s new vision will reflect the thirst for knowledge, new horizons and innovative technology at the heart of Malvern’s Victorian heritage. Successful Spa Garden designs will sit alongside the festival’s iconic Show Gardens.

Each selected design will be offered a £5,000 bursary to support the cost of the garden build. Entries to the Spa Gardens category are invited to submit a design for a small 6m x 6m garden. The garden need not be square within that area and can take any shape.

Anyone with creative flair and a love of gardens, who is interested in entering the Spa Garden category, can find more information on how to apply by visiting http://www.threecounties.co.uk/rhsmalvern/options.php?id=21

RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take place from Thursday 11 May until Sunday 14 May. For more information and full winners details from 2016, please call 01684 584900 or visit www.rhsmalvern.co.uk

The show is expected to attract around 100,000 visitors over its four days and there are already a record number of garden design entries for the 2017 show in all categories.